In re Marriage of Grigsby

1

NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION

No. 118,892


IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF KANSAS

In the Matter of the Marriage of
PHILIP ANDRA GRIGSBY,
Appellant,

and

TAMMY LYNN GRIGSBY,
Appellee.


MEMORANDUM OPINION

Appeal from Reno District Court; TRISH ROSE, judge. Opinion filed October 5, 2018. Affirmed.

Philip Andra Grigsby, appellant pro se.

Candace S. Bridgess, of Kansas Legal Services, of Hutchinson, for appellee.

Before BUSER, P.J., ATCHESON, J., and WALKER, S.J.

PER CURIAM: After Philip Andra Grigsby pleaded guilty in the United States
District Court for the District of Kansas to crimes involving the production and
possession of child pornography and received a 260-year prison sentence, he filed for and
was granted a divorce from Tammy Lynn Grigsby in Reno County District Court. As a
special condition of his sentence, the federal district court ordered that Philip have no
contact with Tammy or their son and daughter. Their daughter has been identified as a
victim of Philip's crimes; she was about nine years old at the time. Since his sentencing in
2013, Philip has repeatedly tried to secure some form of visitation or contact with the
children.
2


In most of those efforts, Philip has represented himself. This appeal arises from
one of his latest forays—motions he filed with the Reno County District Court for
parenting time in the divorce case and for relief from the federal sentencing condition.
The district court denied the motions. We affirm.

In granting the divorce in 2014, the Reno County District Court denied Philip
parenting time with the children—effectively precluding any contact with them. A party
may ask a district court to modify orders governing parenting time following a divorce
based on changed circumstances or to "serve the best interests of the child[ren]." K.S.A.
2017 Supp. 23-3221(a). The district court acts in its sound discretion in making and
modifying those orders, and we review them for abuse of that judicial discretion. Frazier
v. Goudschaal, 296 Kan. 730, 755, 295 P.3d 542 (2013). A district court exceeds that
discretion if it rules in a way no reasonable judicial officer would under the
circumstances, if it ignores controlling facts or relies on unproven factual representations,
or if it acts outside the legal framework appropriate to the issue. See Northern Natural
Gas Co. v. ONEOK Field Services Co., 296 Kan. 906, 935, 296 P.3d 1106 (2013); State
v. Ward, 292 Kan. 541, Syl. ¶ 3, 256 P.3d 801 (2011).

In support of his present request for parenting time, Philip offered that he had
completed numerous courses and programs while in prison and had otherwise made
significant rehabilitative strides. He also asserted, without supporting evidence, that his
children, now teenagers, would benefit from some communication and other interactions
with him. The Reno County District Court balanced those representations against the
circumstances of the divorce and the precipitating criminal convictions. Both the type of
crimes and the familial component of the underlying facts weighed against allowing
Philip contact with either child. The district court understood the factual record and the
applicable legal principles. So we are left to ask whether no reasonable district court
could have come to the same conclusion. We comfortably conclude reasonable district
courts would have continued to deny Philip any parenting time. The Reno County District
3

Court did not abuse its wide judicial discretion on that score—a sufficient basis to affirm
the ruling.

In addition, however, the Reno County District Court properly could have denied
Philip parenting time or any other limited contact with the children based on principles of
comity and abstention, given the federal district court's no-contact order. A court may
choose not to exercise its authority when another court has already begun litigation or
issued an order in what is effectively the same legal dispute. The federal district court had
already entered a no-contact order against Philip as a special condition of his sentence at
the request of the prosecutor who spoke on behalf of the family members. The
considerations bearing on that order are largely the same as those informing the issue of
parenting time in the divorce. Here, the Reno County District Court had the discretion to
defer to the federal court's earlier determination and order.

When the Reno County District Court considered Philip's motions, the United
States Court of Appeals had already upheld Philip's sentence on direct appeal and had
later twice declined to modify the no-contact provision. See United States v. Grigsby, 749
F.3d 908, 909 (10th Cir. 2014); United States v. Grigsby, 630 Fed. Appx. 838, 841-42
(10th Cir. 2015) (unpublished opinion); United States v. Grigsby, 579 Fed. Appx. 680,
686 (10th Cir. 2014) (unpublished opinion). We also take judicial notice that shortly after
the Reno County District Court denied Philip's motion to allow parenting time, the
federal district court entered an order rejecting his request to rescind the no-contact
provision of his sentence. See United States v. Grigsby, No. 12-cr-10174-JTM, doc. 267,
filed Dec. 12, 2017. Given that the federal district court entered the no-contact order as
part of Philip's sentence for heinous crimes that victimized a vulnerable member of his
family, the Reno County District Court would have acted in its sound discretion in
deferring to that ruling as a singular basis for refusing parenting time to Philip. Such a
decision would have been fully compatible with comity and general abstention principles.
Especially in light of the federal courts' repeated review and affirmation of the no-contact
4

provision of the sentence, we could fairly uphold the Reno County District Court's most
recent rulings based on those principles.

Philip also invited the Reno County District Court to find the no-contact
component of his federal criminal sentence to be a violation of the substantive due
process rights of parents to associate with and rear their children as protected by the
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and to vacate that part of his
sentence for that reason. See Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 753, 102 S. Ct. 1388, 71
L. Ed. 2d 599 (1982) (recognizing constitutionally protected liberty interest of parents "in
the care, custody, and management of their child[ren]"). But a state court has no authority
to vacate a federal court order. The Reno County District Court, therefore, properly
denied Philip's request to enter an order doing so. Philip alternatively asked that the Reno
County District Court order Tammy to file a motion in federal district court to vacate the
no-contact provision. Again, a state district court has no authority to direct someone to
take that sort of action in a federal court.

Finally, Philip requested that his mother—the children's paternal grandmother—be
allowed visitation with the children. Tammy opposed visitation. The Reno County
District Court denied the request. Philip challenges that ruling on appeal and renews his
request that the children's grandmother be afforded visitation. Grandparents may be
granted visitation rights with minor grandchildren. K.S.A. 2017 Supp. 23-3301. They
have standing or sufficient legal interest to seek visitation in a divorce proceeding and
must act on their own behalf in the absence of an agreement between the divorcing
parents permitting visitation. But one of the divorcing parties cannot act in their stead.
Accordingly, Philip lacks the authority to represent his mother. See State ex rel. Morrison
v. Sebelius, 285 Kan. 875, 892, 179 P.3d 366 (2008) (litigant generally cannot raise
another person's legal rights). The district court properly denied his motion to allow
grandparent visitation.

Affirmed.